Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/357

 10 s. XL APRIL io, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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of the family of Randolph (more correctly Ranulf), who became Earl of Moray in 1312."

And here the author makes a statement, which closely affects MB. QTJILLIN'S query : " In the earliest Ranulf seal (circa 1280), Laing ' Scottish Seals,' i. No. 688, the cushions are of a square shape with a point uppermost and with- out tassels, and may therefore be better designated pilloics or oreillers, as Froissart terms them, and as they are styled in Charles's Roll."

As to the further query relating to the arms of Sir James Douglas, " Argent, on a chief argent," something is obviously wrong and wanting. Of course it should be Argent, on a chief azure three mullets of the field. But perhaps this was before " the good Sir James " brought as an augmentation to the family arms the human heart borne by all later Douglases, in recognition of his having carried the heart of Robert Bruce to the Holy Land in order that he might give it burial in Jerusalem, what time he himself fell in battle with the Saracens in 1330. The crown is a comparatively recent addition to the original charges.

I may state that here in the parish church- yard of St. John's, Antigua (now Cathedral), are two monuments to the Douglas family. One much obliterated is to the son of a former Governor of the " Leeward Caribbee Islands," who died (so far as I can make out) in 1713 ; it faintly shows the above arms with the heart crowned and transfixed by an arrow, with the motto " Sapientia et virtus " ; and the crest, apparently, an arm, embowed and vambraced, holding a dagger. The other is to a lady member of the family who died in 1744, her arms being here differenced by the chief being " engrailed " and the mullets " pierced," with the motto " Do or die," and the crest a similar arm to the other, but holding a broken lance instead of a dagger.

J. S. UDAL, F.S.A.

Antigua, W.I.

BELFOUR FAMILY (10 S. xi. 250). I have in my possession a pedigree and account of the family of Belfour. The family is of Scotch origin. The name was changed from Balfour to Belfour about 1717. Sir Michael Balfour was created Baron of Burleigh 16 July, 1607. The fifth and last Lord, Robert, after having been guilty of murder and pardoned, was attainted in 1715 as the result of his being mixed up in the Rebellion of 1715, and the title became extinct.

We descend through John, the second brother of Robert, the fourth Lord, i.e., uncle of the fifth Lord referred to above.

There have been six Okey Belfours (including my son, who is alive). This name is taken from the second wife of John referred to above. He married a daughter of Dr. Thomas Okey of the Royal College of Physicians, a lineal descendant of the cele- brated Col. John Okey, one of those whose signature appears on the death warrant of King Charles I.

I believe the present Lord Balfour of Burleigh (a recreated title) descends through Mary, the younger sister of Robert, the fifth and last Lord, who married Alexander Bruce of Kinnaird. P. G. B.

Two of the name will be found in 'D.N.B./ iv. 147, viz., Hugo John Belfour (1802-27), author of poems signed St. John Dorset ; and John Belfour (1768-1842), Orientalist and miscellaneous writer. A. R. BAYLEY.

LORD MACATJLAY AND WLLUAM JOHN THOMS (10 S. xi. 165, 215). The paragraph in The British Weekly quoted by MR. FRANCIS, and questioned by COL. PHIPPS, is based on an appreciation of Mr. Thorns that appeared in The Athenceum shortly after his death in August, 1885, and was reprinted in The Daily News. The incident had already been mentioned by Thorns himself in his entertaining ' Gossip of an Old Bookworm ' in The Nineteenth Century for July, 1881 (pp. 74 and 75).

Immediately Mr. Edgar Sanderson, con- sidering he saw in this account an attempted depreciation of Macaulay, wrote a hot reply in The Daily News denying the whole story, and declaring the writer "to be either a malignant slanderer or a blundering retailer of silly gossip." In a subsequent issue of The Daily News a writer over the initials of F. G. showed that the book Mr. Thorns referred to may have been " an issue of the rare first edition of ' The Dunciad,' Book I. c. 94 ' and furious D n foams.' " The contention that this referred to Dryden was upheld by one of the contemporary " Keys to the Dunciad."

" It appears moreover from a note in a London edition of 1729 that in a Dublin edition of the work the name Dryden was actually printed in full."

It was a copy of this very Dublin editioix that Mr. Thorns said he had in his pocket all the time ; see ' Gossip.'

JOHN S. CRONE. Kensal Lodge, N.W.

" SERASKIER " : ITS PRONUNCIATION (10 S, xi. 144, 197). COL. PRIDEAUX thinks that although this word was borrowed from the Turks, and represents a Turkish dignity,.